


your heartbeat in mine

by kearlyn



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Newt Lives, Tiny bit of Angst, another of Thomas's reckless plans, mostly fluffy, that actually works, the death cure au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kearlyn/pseuds/kearlyn
Summary: There’s more than one way to give someone your blood.Or, what happens if Newt bites Thomas?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched The Death Cure (twice) and it succeeded in doing what the other movies didn't: dragging me into this fandom. Let's be real, if anything was going to do it, it would be _that scene_. You all know the one I'm talking about. So here we go. First foray into The Maze Runner fandom. :)

_I think this might be the end._

Newt’s weight presses against his chest, so much heavier than the other teen’s thin frame suggests. His knees jam painfully into Thomas’s sides, knocking bruises into his ribs as Newt strains towards him. The rough grit of the concrete walk is a cold slab against Thomas’s back and the sharp point of the knife is a hot pain against his chest.

But the sensations are distant, consumed under the blood rushing in his ears and the fear thundering in his chest.

There is nothing human left in the solid black of Newt’s eyes.

“Newt,” he whispers, desperate and devastated.

Newt bares his teeth and presses down, and Thomas can’t hold back the scream as the blade slides further into his chest. He’s going to die here, he thinks. He’s going to die at the hands of his best friend.

The fire burning around them flickers across Newt’s face and Thomas can almost fool himself into thinking that the dark, pulsing veins under Newt’s skin are just shadows, that the tar-like fluid dripping from his lips is a nightmarish hallucination.

But Newt’s eyes are cold and black and there’s nothing but bottomless rage and hunger when Thomas looks into them.

Newt howls, an uncanny shriek torn from shredding vocal chords, and snaps his teeth at Thomas. Thomas’s arms shake. He knows he won’t be able to hold Newt off much longer.

Somewhere deep inside, he wonders if he should just give up. He can’t kill Newt. He won’t. Living without him would be unbearable.

But there’s no other way.

_You can save him_ , Teresa’s voice says out of his memory. _The cure is in your blood_.

And he wants to push that voice away. It won’t help him. It won’t help Newt, so far gone that Thomas isn’t even sure the serum will work, if Minho manages to make it back before Newt tears out Thomas’s throat.

But…

He looks up at Newt straining towards him, jaws working, and thinks—

_There’s more than one way to give someone your blood._

Then he doesn’t let himself think anymore. He lets go of Newt’s wrists with one hand. Feels the knife sink in further, scraping against bone. Shoves his arm up.

Newt’s teeth sink into his bared skin. Fire races up Thomas’s arm, whiting out his brain. He doesn’t know how long it goes on. His world narrows to pinprick focus. Keep the knife from his heart. Don’t pull away.

Newt needs the cure.

Newt’s weight rolls off him and Thomas can’t tell what hurts more, the knife pulling free from his chest or his skin tearing through Newt’ s teeth.

Thomas scrambles sideways and away. His left arm flops limply at his side, slick with blood and throbbing with his heartbeat. He stays crouched low, ready to twist away from Newt’s next lunge.

He doesn’t have to.

Newt lies on his back, limbs twitching and mouth open in a grating shriek.

Thomas stands, uncertain, legs trembling, for a long moment.

Newt doesn’t get up. His limbs shake harder and his whole body begins to seize.

It’s Thomas’s turn to lunge. He scrambles to Newt’s side, ignoring the pain, ignoring the risk, and drags the other boy’s head and shoulders into his lap. Newt’s eyes are open, wide and unseeing. His head knocks against Thomas’s thighs.

There’s a shout from across the courtyard. Thomas’s head snaps up and his arm tightens around Newt’s shoulders. He doesn’t have a weapon. He can’t defend them if WCKD comes.

It’s not WCKD.

It’s Brenda, skidding around the corner. Minho and Gally are right behind her, racing across the courtyard and dropping to the ground on either side of Newt’s seizing body.

“I have the serum,” Brenda gasps, holding up a tiny vial of the electric-blue fluid.

“What happened?” Minho demands.

“It was in my blood,” Thomas says. His head is spinning and he can’t quite make sense of what’s happening. “Teresa said. The cure. It’s in my blood.”

“We heard,” Gally says. “The whole damned city heard.”

“Thomas, what happened?” Minho says.

Thomas tries to answer, but the words slip away from him. What happened? He doesn’t know what happened. It’s a jumbled blur of fear and heartbreak and blood.

“Oh my God, he bit you,” Brenda says and reaches out.

Her fingers graze the edge of the jagged wound and black creeps across Thomas’s vision. Distantly, he hears himself screaming. When he comes back to himself, he’s hunched forward over Newt’s head and someone — Gally, he realizes — is bracing him upright.

He looks over and thinks he sees something like concern and horror on the other boy’s face.

“I made him,” Thomas says. He looks over and finds Minho looking just as shocked, just as horrified.

“I made him,” Thomas says again. “I had to. He had to have the cure.”

Minho looks down at the blood — on Thomas’s arm, on Newt’s chin — and swears softly.

“You actually believed her?” Gally demands.

And Thomas wants to say _no_. No, he didn’t believe her because he’s learned, finally, that Teresa lies. That she might care about him, about them, but that she’ll do anything, say anything, to find a cure. That he didn’t believe her, but didn’t have any other choice.

He looks down at Newt and the words disappear because the black veins are sliding away from Newt’s face. It might be a trick of the light, he tells himself. It might be wishful thinking.

But Newt’s eyes are open, just a crack, and Thomas sees brown. Brown with a hint of amber. The black is gone.

“It worked,” he breathes and in that moment, the pain is gone. He feels only a giant bubble of happiness lifting him from the inside. “It worked.”

He hears Gally and Minho and Brenda exclaim softly as they come to the same realization, but all he can see is the brown of Newt’s eyes and the black disappearing from under his skin.

An explosion rocks the city, jarring them all from their reverie.

“We have to go,” Gally says, eyes flitting around the courtyard.

Another explosion rocks them. It sounds only a few hundred meters away and gunfire follows in its wake.

Thomas nods and forces himself to let go of Newt. He doesn’t want to; can’t shake the feeling that if he lets go then Newt will slip away from him again. But he doesn’t have the strength to carry Newt to the berg. He doesn’t even have the strength to carry himself.

Brenda helps him stagger to his feet as Gally and Minho brace Newt between them. Newt’s limbs still shake, but the seizures have subsided and Thomas imagines that even Newt’s breathing sounds better already. He lets Brenda tuck herself under his right arm and take his weight, and hopes he doesn’t collapse before they make it back to the berg.

As they stagger across the courtyard, Thomas looks back one last time at the WCKD building towering over the skyline. He thinks of Teresa, hunkered in the labs desperately searching for a cure, and feels of pang of something like regret. He doesn’t realize he’s stopped until Brenda tugs on his arm.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about going back there,” she demands incredulously. Her eyes glitter and her mouth is set in a firm line, and Thomas thinks she might actually knock him unconscious and drag him away if he even hints at wanting to go back for Teresa.

But. He doesn’t, he realizes.

He doesn’t want to go back.

He regrets, a little, walking away and hopes that she’ll make it out alive.

But he doesn’t want to go back. Doesn’t care that he has the cure she was so desperately searching for. It’s never been about the world for him; it’s always been about the individuals, the people he knows and loves.

Maybe if Newt hadn’t made it, if Thomas hadn’t been able to help him…

He looks from the WCKD building back to Newt, unconscious but _healing_.

“No,” he says. “I’m not going back. I’m going home.”

He forces himself to move, putting his back to WCKD and following Newt. He’s finally found a way to let go. Brenda squeezes his waist but doesn’t say anything.

Thomas feels lighter than he has in his entire memory.

They move as quickly as they can. Gally and Minho drag Newt between them, sacrificing gentleness for speed, and Thomas concentrates on planting his feet firmly and staying conscious. Blood still flows from the jagged tears in his arm and stab wound in his chest; black edges across his vision, but they can’t stop to bandage his wounds or rest. The city is collapsing around them and they have to go if they’re going to make it out alive.

Thomas lets his mind go blank except for the litany of _left foot right foot_ and the sight of Newt’s back as Gally and Minho stumble through the streets.

He doesn’t remember making it to the berg, can’t process as Vince and Jorge take his weight from Brenda and drag him in. He feels the berg lift off as the ground heaves beneath. He sees Newt laying on a row of seats. In the berg’s harsh light, the blood is more obvious but so is the slow receding of the infection.

His strength finally fails him. A smile touches his lips and Newt’s face is the last thing he sees as darkness swallows him.

_We made it._


	2. Chapter 2

_Please, Tommy. Please._

Red and black in his eyes, under his skin. Fierce, hot anger, yawning darkness in his brain. The urge to tear, bite, destroy.

_Newt, please, Newt. It’s me._

Hands bearing down, fingers curled, cold steel against fevered skin. Destroy, destroy, destroy. Steel parting skin. A bloom of red blood. A scream, not his.

_Newt, please. Newt._

_I’m sorry Tommy._

 

Newt wakes up. His chest heaves and his breath rasps in his ears. His skin feels tight, his stomach roils, where is he, where’s Thomas—

Memory slams back into him. Red and black sliding over his vision, a white hot anger under his skin, and Tommy, Tommy screaming.

Newt’s stomach heaves. He hangs over the side of the cot he’s lying on, spitting bile and black tar onto the floor. His heart races. The wooden edge of the cot’s frame bites into the soft skin of his fingers. ( _Fingers that put a_ knife _in Tommy’s heart, oh God._ ) Tears blur his vision and he gasps for air.

_Tommy Tommy Tommy, oh God, I’m so sorry._

There’s a hand on his back and he gradually becomes aware of a voice murmuring in his ear.

“—e’s here. Newt, it’s okay. It’s okay. We’re okay. You’re okay.”

Minho. Newt wants to collapse in relief. Minho made it. _At least it wasn’t all for nothing._

A last stream of fluid forces it’s way past his lips. He gags and coughs and collapses back onto the cot, feeling Minho’s hands guiding him back down. He lets himself settle, eyes closed and tears leaking through his lashes. Lets himself breathe.

He wants to let Minho’s voice and calm hands carry him away. Let them shut down his brain. Let himself _not feel_.

_Newt, please._

He opens his eyes. Wipes his mouth with a shaking hand. Black covers his skin, shining and slick.

Black and red. The Flare.

Panic grips him and he shoves Minho’s hands away.

_Get away, get away, get away! Don’t want to hurt you, get away!_

He doesn’t realize he’s shouting until his throat seizes and he starts coughing. He doesn’t have the strength to push Minho away when the other teen wraps an arm around his shoulders to pull him close and rubs the knuckles of his other hand up and down Newt’s chest.

“Minho,” he whispers when the coughing subsides. “Minho, you have to get away.”

“Newt—”

“Get away, Minho! I don’t want to hurt you, please, I don’t—"

Newt tries to scramble backwards, but his limbs feel like jelly and Minho’s arms won’t budge.

“Minho,” he begs.

“It’s okay!” Minho says. His arms tighten. “You’re okay. You got the cure. You’re not sick. The Flare is gone. You’re okay.”

And Newt… can’t process.

“What?” he whispers.

“You’re okay.” Minho repeats. “You got the cure. There _is_ a cure, and you got it, and you’re okay.”

Newt feels like something is squeezing his lungs. His limbs shake and he can’t…

“You’re okay,” Minho says. “You’re cured. You’re not going to hurt anyone.”

And Newt wants to believe, wants to sag in relief, wants to be able to banish the images from his brain, but—

“But Thomas,” Newt breathes and Minho…

Minho laughs. Newt wants to snarl, to snap, to shout.

_How can you be laughing when I killed Tommy?!_

“I’m surprised the shuckface hasn’t woken up with all the noise you’ve been making,” Minho says and Newt’s thoughts grind to a halt.

“What?” he whispers.

Minho tips his head towards the other side of the room and Newt’s gaze follows.

There’s another cot wedged into the tiny space and curled on that cot, slack-faced and barefoot, is Thomas. Newt’s breath catches and for a moment he thinks Thomas is dead, thinks they brought Thomas’s body along to bury, but why would they keep him here, why would Minho say—

Then he notices the gentle rise and fall of Thomas’s shoulders, the ways his face furrows and smooths out as if dreaming.

He’s alive.

Newt feels like the breath has been punched out of him.

_He’s alive._

“Yeah,” Minho says and Newt realizes he’s been thinking out loud again.

Suddenly he has to move, has to get to Thomas’s side, can’t bear even the tiny distance separating them. His legs collapse under him as he tries to stand, and only Minho’s quick movement saves Newt from hitting the ground. The other teen wraps his arms around Newt’s waist and helps him stumble across the room. Newt sinks to the ground at Thomas’s side, drinking in the smooth lines of his face, the way sunlight filtering through the thin walls dances over his skin.

The way he breathes.

“He’s alive,” Newt says, voice shaking.

“Yeah,” Minho says. His voice is just as quiet.

“I didn’t hurt him,” Newt says, reaching out with shaking fingers for Thomas’s hand.

This time Minho says nothing and Newt feels his stomach roil again. He glances desperately at his friend.

“I didn’t hurt him, right?” he says.

Minho doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. There’s unease and gentle apology in his gaze. Newt’s fingers, dancing over Thomas’s skin, catch on something rough. He turns back, unable to bear the grim knowledge in Minho’s eyes.

There’s a bandage wrapped around the length of Thomas’s left forearm.

Newt remembers skin tearing under his teeth.

And he remembers the knife.

With shaking hands, he tugs open the collar of Thomas’s shirt. Another bandage, wrapped around his chest, holding a gauze pad over his heart.

And Newt knows, with a surety that goes down to his bones, that he put both those injuries on Thomas.

“Tommy,” he whispers.

_I’m sorry_ , he wants to say but the words are stuck in his throat. _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry._

Under his hands, Thomas shifts. His face scrunches together and his eyes flutter open. Newt’s breath catches. He meets Thomas’s gaze and waits — waits for the realization of who is crouched over him, waits for the flinch away.

It never comes.

Thomas blinks once, twice, then a smile, bright as the sunrise breaks over his face. Newt lives for that smile.

“Newt,” Thomas breaths. “You’re awake.” It sounds like awe in his voice.

“Tommy,” Newt whispers, and can’t say anything else because Thomas is levering himself upright and dragging Newt into a hug.

This time, Newt doesn’t resist. Thomas’s arms close around his shoulders and his own wind around Thomas’s waist. He feels Thomas’s cheek press against the top of his head; Thomas’s heart beats softly under his ear.

Distantly, he hears Minho say, “I’ll leave you shanks to it,” and the sound of footsteps moving away.

He doesn’t care.

Thomas is here and alive and somehow doesn’t hate Newt. That’s enough.

He lets himself melt into the embrace for long moments until Thomas pulls away. The other teen doesn’t go far — just far enough to make space to drag Newt onto the cot beside him. Newt goes without protest and finds himself sitting so close to Thomas that their knees press together and their breath mingles. Thomas’s hand is a warm weight around his wrist and Newt is reminded suddenly of that moment in the church when he’d pressed Thomas against the wall to snarl in his face.

This is better — all the closeness and warmth without the rage and fear of the Flare consuming his brain.

Newt wants to stay here forever, to wrap himself in the moment and stop thinking and just _be_.

“Are you okay?” Thomas asks, squeezing Newt’s wrist.

Of course, Newt thinks, Thomas has never been capable of that kind of stillness.

Then the question registers.

“Am I okay?!” he asks incredulously. “Am _I_ okay?! I should be asking you that. I nearly killed you.”

Thomas winces.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he says, but his eyes are sliding away from Newt’s.

“Don’t lie to me,” Newt says, and this time it’s a plea.

Thomas swallows and nods.

“It really wasn’t that bad,” he says. This time he meets Newt’s gaze and Newt can see that he means.

Or that he’s convinced himself of it. Talked himself into it for the sake of Newt.

Newt won’t let that stand. He’s been watching out for this shank since the day they met, and he’s determined to keep doing it. Even if the person Thomas needs to be protected from is Newt himself.

“I remember the knife,” Newt says.

Thomas winces again and his goes to his chest. He doesn’t seem aware of the movement, but Newt is. It highlights the bandage wrapped around the length of his forearm.

Newt can’t tear his eyes away.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Thomas says, tapping his fingers against his chest. “The knife caught on my ribs so it didn’t actually go in that far…”

He trails off as Newt raises his free hand. He sees his fingers shaking and drops his hand back to his lap.

“I stabbed you in the heart and the only reason you’re not dead is because I got your ribs instead,” Newt says. His voice sounds flat and distant to his ears.

Thomas sighs.

“It wasn’t you,” he says. “It was the Flare.”

Newt shakes his head.  “It _was_ me. I remember it. It was my hands. It—”

Thomas catches his waving hand and it brings Newt’s babbling panic to a shaking halt.

“Do you want to hurt me?” Thomas asks.

Newt’s gaze snaps to Thomas. The other teen is watching him with a steady, open expression.

“No!” Newt gasps, leaning desperately forwards. “No. Never. I never want to hurt you. I lo—. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know,” Thomas says, quiet and fierce. “I know you don’t. And that’s how I know it wasn’t you.”

Newt breathes. It’s hard to accept, to let Thomas absolve him of responsibility, but he _wants_ it.

He twists his right hand to tap the bandages on Thomas’s left arm.

“I suppose you’ll say this wasn’t me either,” he says, gaze fastened on the evidence of his madness.

He’d put his _teeth_ in Thomas’s skin. _Who did that?!_

Thomas stills. His fingers twitch restlessly against Newt’s. Newt looks up and finds him biting his lip and looking nervous.

He raises his eyebrows in a silent demand for a response.

Thomas caves immediately. He always does.

“Well,” he starts hesitantly, “technically that one was my fault.”

Newt blinks.

“You bit your own arm then?” he asks.

“No. But I did… kind of… shove it in your mouth.”

Newt doesn’t know what his face is doing. He doesn’t know what his brain is doing.

Thomas glances up at him, then back down to his lap, then meets Newt’s gaze determinedly.

“Sorry?” he says. His face twists into something that might be contrite.

“What.” Newt says. “Why would you…”

The explanation spills out of Thomas. Minho and Gally running for the serum, Newt turning and attacking, Teresa’s message. And Thomas’s desperate (idiotic) idea.

“So let me get this straight,” Newt says. He’s pulled both his hands from Thomas’s grip to massage his temples. “You knew the cure was in your blood and you thought the best way to give it to me was to have me _eat you_?!”

Thomas winces.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time?” he offers.

And Newt… Newt feels helpless laughter bubbling up from his chest. His shoulders shake and the giggles burst from between his lips. At some point they turn to sobs and he doesn’t remember Thomas leaning forward to wrap him in a hug, but he can feel the steady weight of the other teen’s arms around him.

The laughter finally subsides, but neither of them pulls back. They stay like that, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air for long moments.

Newt is the first to pull away, just far enough that he can meet Thomas’s gaze. The other teen’s amber eyes are intent on his.

“Thanks Tommy,” he says quietly.

Thomas smiles. “I’d do it all again for you,” he says, and Newt catches a glimpse of the necklace — his necklace — hanging around Thomas’s neck.

Newt curls his fingers around Thomas’s, reveling in the ability to touch the other teen. Six months ago — a week ago — he would never have dared.

“Where do we go from here?” he asks.

“Wherever we want,” Thomas says.

Newt glances from their interlaced fingers to Thomas’s open face and takes a chance. He’s nearly died. Thomas has nearly died. They have a whole future ahead of them and Newt doesn’t intend to waste a minute.

“What I want is to kiss you,” he says.

Thomas beams, that sunrise smile kindling a soft warmth in Newt’s chest.

“I’d like that,” Thomas says.

They lean in together and it’s better than Newt imagined even in his best dreams. The empty place in his chest is filled with light and love.

It’s Thomas, warm and here and _free_ , and everything Newt ever wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for checking out my first (hopefully not last) foray into The Maze Runner! Comments always welcome :D

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr at thekearlyn.tumblr.com if you want to hang out there!


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